Court allows Phones4U appeal

The Court of Appeal has ruled for high street phone seller, Phones4u, against phone4u.co.uk allowing, in part, its appeal against a High Court decision from March 2005 that dismissed claims of passing off and trade mark infringements. The Court of appeal upheld the decision in realtion to trade mark infringement but allowed the appeal in relation to passing off finding that the High Court: (i) applied the wrong test in deciding whether or not at the operative date Phones4U had a goodwill protectable by passing off; (ii) the date of first registration of “phone4u.co.uk” an instrument of fraud (iii) the Judge wrongly characterised a large number of instances of deception as “mere confusion.”; and (iv) the Judge erred in placing significance in co-existence for 5 years without “deception” without first considering the extent of phone4u.co.uk’s use during that time”.